Monday, August 25, 2008

[ts]Here we are, still way behind. So, please give a warm welcome to our guest blogger, CSC's brother, the B!

The B is quite passionate about hong ba, waxing poetical when the topic arises. Here's how he makes hong ba. When he does, he doesn't waste anything and actually makes three (3) dishes!

1 Hong Ba (Red-Braised Pork Hock)

[the B]In a pot with some water, Ninang (godmother) boiled the pork leg with onions and a little salt. Then it simmered and slow-cooked for 3 hours while she went to watch a movie. =)

After slow-cooking, I pan-fried the pork leg with some shallots and soy sauce to brown it. Then back to the pot it went, along with just one-fifth (1/5) of its "soup" (resulting pork broth). I mixed in light and dark soy sauce, brown sugar, whole black pepper and star anise. The pork leg slow-cooked for another one-and-a-half (1.5) hours. After all that time, I was not so satisfied with the sauce so I cheated and put some flour to make the sauce thicker. =)

Serve the pork leg with its thick sauce, along with some Chinese mushrooms and bok choy.

2 Shabu-shabu (aka Hot Pot)[the B]As for the rest of the soup? That is, four-fifths (4/5) of the original boiling liquid/pork broth.

Well, we usually use it for shabu-shabu/hot pot. We use any vegetables on hand and cook it in the pork broth. We then make our condiment: sate/satay sauce with raw eggs (mix them together in a small bowl). On this occasion, we had bok-choy, radish, carrots, pechay and shiitake mushroom. Take cooked items out of the broth and dip in the satay-egg sauce. Delicious! =)

3 Hong Ba Pao/Bao (Hong Ba Bun)[the B]Finally, we got some buns from T&T and made a Hong Ba Pao with leftover hong ba and its sauce. =)